Kalaba misled President?

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 09:05:16 +0000

By AARON CHIYANZO

HARRY Kalaba deliberately arranged too many foreign trips for President Edgar Lungu so that the Head of State could be subjected to public uproar which would cement the former minister’s presidential ambitions, former UPND spokesperson Edward Mumbi has said.

Mr Mumbi said that if there was anything wrong with the President traveling at the rate he had been doing, then the former Foreign Affairs minister was to blame.

He told the Daily Nation that Mr Kalaba could have deliberately subjected the President to many foreign trips so that he could raise public uproar.

Mr Mumbi pointed out that the former minister had Presidential ambitions and that such uproar would be good for his career.

“The President could have been travelling at that level because he had a wrong Foreign Affairs minister, who had his own ambitions. The President works within a system, but he could have been wrongly advised,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Mumbi said that there was nothing wrong a President travelling as long as it was within a system.

He explained that the Head of State could delegate to the minister of Foreign Affairs or the vice president to attend certain international meetings.

Mr Mumbi however emphasised that there was a system by which the President was forced to travel and that if anything was wrong with that then the blame should be on the former Foreign Affairs minister.

He pointed out that there were certain high level meetings that demanded the presence of the Head of State, but that if the President had attended those he would have delegated, then the minster was to blame.